Sunday, April 09, 2017

One short primer on issues of MH - the biggest issue here in MH is NOT hindutva. "THE" biggest issue here is water scarcity. Now aamir khan's "paaNi foundation", Nana Patekar-Makarand Anaspure's "Naam foundation", Sri Sri's AOL have done terrific job at water conservation at village level in their capacity. Akshay Kumar is yet another bollywood bigwig who puts in money here.

The biggest star here is Jalyukt Shivaar Yojana (which is frought with shit loads of scams - mostly pertaining to haphazard digging by sand-mafia) which has made tremendous difference. For past 4-5 years, there was continuous drought in most of MH. The numbers of IDPs within MH who came to puNe-Mum is mind-boggling. It got worse since 2014 (until the monsoon of 2016 which was finally a good one after a long wait). The works done in 2014-2015 has ensured that there is lot of water still available to use and tankers have decreased drastically.
The second biggest development that has happened sugar-mafia. They have been forced to install water-circulation and reuse units by current govt (includes sugar factories of BJP's sugar barons as well). This is biggest reason for mass-inflow of ppl from NCP to BJP.

One case-study. A typical sugar factory (owned by a sugar baron - read by sugar lobby article to understand how it works) takes up around 22-25 lakh litres of water per day discharge 16 lakh litres of stillage (post biogas production spent-wash). Imagine the scale of criminal wastage. There are plenty of such sugar factories in Maharashtra. It is due to this reason (and many reasons in every district) the people downstream of godavari in Mararthwada did not get enough water. The very fact that almost all these sugar barons are now scrambling to instal capabilities to ensure "zero-discharge" is THE biggest achievement of this state-govt in my opinion.

Our people (our = sangh parivar and other like-minded folks) are collaborating with the above mentioned players and NGOs. That is one the problem which may arise in future times. But right now the situation is so desperate that people do not want to see who is helping them. I am glad to report sangh is participating in all this to ensure our visibility in all this.

Hindutva is operating system of marathi social mind. It is better if it stays as a wall-paper (i.e. on the backdrop). If it starts popping up again and again, I fear people will get bored (like they are getting bored of shivsena - they have overplayed their hindutva-marathi card).